Major Lazer have called for young people to be taught "how to do drugs [safely]" following two drug-related deaths at a New York music festival. Diplo and Jillionaire blamed America's "conservative culture" for the Electric Zoo tragedy, criticising the media's emphasis on the role of electronic dance music (EDM).

"It's going to sound weird but we need to teach kids how to do drugs, the same way we teach them about drinking responsibly and having safe sex," Jillionaire said in an interview with Rolling Stone recently. "If you're going to go to a festival, drink water for six days before you get there … If you're going to do a pill and a half, don't do four more and then pass out, overheat and die of cardiac arrest. Instead of acting like drugs don't exist, acknowledge that drugs will be at a festival and address them."

The current media furore started on 28 August in Boston, where a 19-year-old woman died after allegedly taking molly, or powdered ecstasy. Days later, at Electric Zoo, Jeffrey Russ, 23, and Olivia Rotondo, 20, suffered fatal overdoses from drugs sold under that name. Since March, at least four other people have overdosed on party drugs at dance events around the US.

The problem isn't EDM, Diplo insisted. "The drug thing happens, and this is the first time music writers have something to write about," he said. "When 6,000 kids party for three days and two kids die, it's a story because the writers don't write about electronic music.

"We're such a conservative culture that we'd rather not talk about the things kids want to do, even though they're going to do them anyway. [Drugs are] going to happen; you can't control it. Persecuting a festival is not going to help because kids are going to do them regardless. Hell, they'll do them in their houses."